Management of animals where capture is impossible or inconvenient can be done with darts fired into the animals from a distance. Such darts can be used to tranquilizing, for immunizing, for taking of biopsies, and other purposes. Conventional darting of animals generally involves human stalking or chase, and gunpowder-fired dart guns. These methods are expensive due to manpower and time required, and can cause significant stress on the animals, and can be difficult since considerable effort and skill can be required for a human to approach close enough to a wild animal for a reliable dart shot.
As one example, wild Horses and Burros on public lands are managed due to competition for limited forage from private livestock. Since passage of the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the primary “management” method to control population numbers of these animals has been round up via helicopter chase and other chase methods and removal from public lands. Helicopters round ups are expensive and result in injury and death to the animals. Relying on removing horses and burros from the wild has resulted in approximately 30,000 wild horses and burros being held in long term holding facilities, creating a financial crisis for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). A more humane and sustainable management method is administering Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP), an immunocontraceptive that can be used to control wild horse and burro reproduction. Cost-effectively administration of PZP in the wild has proven to be difficult.
Accordingly, there is a need for dart projection technology that allows for the remote darting of animals in the wild, for example of wild horses and burros with PZP, providing for a more safe, humane, and cost-effective management method.